Rude and insulting treatment from so called customer service department

Posted Tue May 16, 2006, by Karen M. written to Sears.com

On May 3, 2006, I purchased a gas range online at Sears.com and requested an afternoon delivery for the following Friday, May 12, 2006. In the meantime, I donated my range to Habitat for Humanity. Since that time, I have been insulted, disrespected, laughed at and hung up on by your so-called customer service representatives.

It began simply enough when I received a call Thursday, May 11, 2006, that my range was to be delivered between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 12:00 noon. This is not a convenient for me. I had requested a late afternoon delivery. I called to speak to a customer service representative because I am unable to leave work in the middle of the day to take delivery of the range. Additionally, I work more than hour away from my home. I called and spoke with Anthony, another gentleman and Roberto in the delivery department on May 11, 2006, regarding the delivery of a range purchased through Sears.com.

After receiving absolutely no assistance or understanding or even an attempt at listening to my situation from Anthony, I requested to speak to a supervisor. Anthony advised that it didn't matter who I spoke with, I would get the range when it is scheduled and there are no deviations from the way the computer prints out. I again asked to speak with a supervisor. Anthony placed me on hold for eleven (11) and one-half minutes and then a very rude, fast speaking, heavily accented male, whose name I could not understand, picked up, and after interrupting me numerous times, I asked to speak to his supervisor. This is when Roberto got on the line and appeared at first to listen. However, when I explained to him that I work far from home and cannot make it home for a mid-day delivery, Roberto told me "many people spend 8 times more money that you do and they get their purchases when the delivery people say they get their purchase" and there are "no guarantees and you will not get a time frame on your delivery until the night before. End of story." I was in total shock and disbelief that I was being treated this way by not one, but all three of these so-called customer service representatives. I asked to speak to Roberto's manager, who I was advised was Mike. However, Mike was "out to lunch" and not available. After spending over one hour on the telephone with the delivery department, I decided I would wait until the following morning to speak to someone else and to call and lodge a complaint.

On the morning of Friday, May 5, 2006, at 8:31 a.m., I spoke with a customer service representative and received the Sears National Customer Relations telephone number. I advised the operator of my problem and she promptly transferred me to the Rebate Department who of course was no help and the wrong department. I then called back and spoke with Sara. Sara advised that Sears.com contracts out the delivery company and Sears has absolutely no control whatsoever over the delivery division. I find this hard to believe. I believe that I lodged a complaint at that time; however, it appears that anything I have done to this point has fallen on deaf ears. It was crystal clear that I was not going to receive any assistance whatsoever from Sears with regard to the delivery of my range.

Next, I received a telephone call from Arthurene in the delivery department who after 35 minutes of having to put me on hold to get the answer to every single one of my questions, was also no assistance in rescheduling this delivery at a time that was convenient for me. At first I was told that the delivery could take place between 3 and 4 p.m. on Friday, which was acceptable and what I requested from the beginning; then Arthurene called me back and told me that the driver was going to be on the "other side of Palm Coast" and could not deliver in my neighborhood. Palm Coast is not Orlando, it takes 15 minutes to get from one end of Palm Coast to the other. This could have been done that day. Please understand my request is simple: last delivery in the afternoon.

At this point, I suggested they drop off the range my local Sears Appliance Store and I would, at my own expense, rent a truck and pick up the appliance myself. Arthurene, after placing me on hold, advised that me that this could not be done.

I again called Sears National Customer Relations. I spoke with Sue who told me that there was nothing she could do to assist me since the purchase was made through Sears.com and not the physical store. I asked to speak with a supervisor. I was connected to Maria, who advised that I might want to consider canceling the order with Sears.com and purchasing the appliance directly through my local Sears, since the delivery department was difficult to deal with at best.

After some thought, I attempted to call Maria back to ask some additional questions. I called the Sears National Customer Relations number and spoke with a man who refused to give me his name. I requested to Maria, the supervisor, I was just speaking with. He advised that Maria was not a supervisor and that he did not have the capability to transfer me to anyone and began to laugh at my frustration. When I told him that I had just called this same number a few moments before and was able to get transferred I told him that I needed speak to supervisor when he said let me transfer you. When I astonishingly questioned him why did he just tell me that he could not transfer me and now he can, he hung up on me.

Fine, at this point I decided that I had had enough and I was going to cancel the order; however in doing so, I was advised by Chris in the credit department that the credit would not appear on my card for 48 hours. I pondered this as I am having the gas line installed on Friday, May 19, 2006, and after speaking with Tom at my local Sears Appliance Store was advised that the order would need to be placed that day (Friday May 12, 2006) for delivery prior to Friday. Chris suggested that since they have not fulfilled my need that I may not be charged with the 15% restocking fee. He also advised that a sales credit could be issued and the store sale should still go through.

Armed with this information, I called to cancel the range, I spoke with Kevin who was completely unwilling, after hearing about this fiasco to waive the restocking fee. I then spoke with his supposed supervisor, Robert who advised that the credit would take 5-7 days for the credit to appear on my account and I would absolutely be charged the restocking fee. Hence my total frustration with the lack of concern, compassion, understanding, truthfulness and problem solving of your customer service in each department that I have spoken to on Friday morning.

At this point, I had spent 3.5 hours of my employer's time being lied to, disrespected, mocked, laughed at and hung up on by your so-called professional customer service representatives and supposed supervisors.

In the meantime, at 11:43 a.m. Jerome, the delivery truck driver called to tell me that he was on his way to my house. Jerome advised that he was told to call me prior to delivering the range and nothing else. Unbelievable.

At my wit's end, I called to completely cancel my order and spoke with a Ruth in your sadly lacking customer service department. Ruth, to her credit, tried to appease me and made a last ditch effort to save the sale. She got Keegan in your delivery department on the telephone at approximately 12:15 p.m. who said that my range would be delivered the next day - Saturday. At no time has anyone offered to deliver the appliance on any other day than Tuesday or a Friday. I was thrilled FINALLY some resolution. Keegan advised that I would receive a telephone call after 5:00 p.m. on Friday advising when to expect the delivery on Saturday. I received that telephone call at approximately 5:30 p.m. and through a recorded message was advised that my delivery was scheduled between the hours of 2:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. Saturday, May 13, 2006.

The delivery never happened on Saturday, May 13, 2006.

I received a telephone call from Alisa at approximately 9:35 a.m. on Saturday, May 13, 2005, who was calling to reschedule my delivery. I assured Alisa that this was taken care of and I was scheduled for delivery later that day. Alisa tried unsuccessfully to reach anyone in the warehouse and after three telephone calls to me, apologized that she was not able to confirm or deny the delivery as she could not get anyone to answer the telephone.

After rearranging my Saturday plans to remain at home between 2:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. and not receiving my range, I began another round of telephone calls to Sears at 3:40 p.m. I spoke with Lori in delivery who advised that she did not see my delivery scheduled for that day. She placed me on hold and when she returned she advised me that Keegan did not put in the correct code and therefore the delivery was not scheduled. What should be a simple, routine task, has now become a comedy of errors. Because of the incompetence of your employees and Keegan, I am again going days without a range. Lori offered a $75 gift card from Sears but that is little compensation for what I have had to deal with in the past two days. When I asked to speak with Keegan, I was advised that he was conveniently not available.

My range is supposedly scheduled for Tuesday, May 16, 2006; however Lori advised that Tuesday is a very busy day, so it may actually be delivered on Friday!! I am appalled at the treatment I have received from just about every Sears customer service employee. I cannot fathom what type of training your employees receive, if any. If the policy of Sears is to demean, disrespect and belittle your customers you have achieved that goal.

You can be certain that I will never purchase another item from Sears, Sears.com or any of the Sears subsidiaries and will not hesitate to verbalize my frustrations with your company with every person I have the opportunity to meet. After investing more than 5 hours with your various customer service departments, I am in a no better position than I was when I first contacted them on Thursday.

I take umbrage with the My issue is not so much the delivery of the purchase

I would appreciate it if someone, with some authority to make decisions and rectify this problem would call me as soon as possible to deal with my issues.

A simple apology from one person about this whole mess is totally unacceptable. I want a good faith letter from the Chairman or President of Sears.com so that I am postive that they are aware of the treatment their customers receive when dealing with their company.

The real sear (brick and motor is just as bad) it took us 3 weeks toget a Ref.
FYI. we have been tring to get our Ref fixed for 6 months (12appointments 8 keep). And Our warher just failed. Since Jan 25th theyhvae scheduled 8 appointmnets and blown us off 8 times!
So I would not buy or get a repair ageement with sears at all!
We also have spent may days waiting at home, taking off work, and onthe phone. My wife calculated about 8 hours on the phone and missingabout 7 days of work!
Sears is just a mess and there is NO customer service....

First off I want to apologize for any spelling mistakes, I have abroken wrist and it makes it quite hard to type.

I work at Sears.com/Kmart.com. I am in not standing up for what hashappened to you. It is very appaling that you were treated soterribly.

Being a customer serivce rep. I try my hardest to help someone outwhen they have a true problem (now I know that everyone thinks thereproblem is top priotiy, but a 2 cent price match does not compare tosomething like this) and I understand this problem and the frustrationhere.

I just happened to be looking at this site, and saw this, and it mademe feel bad. And there are two reasons why. The first would be becasueof the way you were treated. The center where I work at (now I knowanyone who has had a problem with Sears, and hey I work for them, so Ihave problems with them too, will not belive this) would not have putup with you being treated that way. We are not allowed to hang up onpeople, so I can not fathom someone here doing it. But we are justSears and Kmart.com call center, Not the other call centers. I knowfor a fact the NCR (National Customer Relations) is rude and hangs upon people. I don't see why people would treat a customer that way.They wouldn't want to be treated that way.

The second reasons it upsets me is becasue I try very hard to helpeveryone. Even it is a 2 cent price accomadation. But there arepolicies put in place, becasue of other people, that we have to abideby. The thing here was, no one followed them.

I am 20 years old, do not want to be a CS Rep for a living, but do doit to the best of my ability. Just to let everyone know, some of uscare.

First off, you should never buy major appliances off of the internet.You don't always get all of the information that you need. It neverhurts to have a good salesperson there to take care of you. They'llmake sure you're taken care of as they are usually on commission.You're not paying anything extra, and you'll have someone internal to"go to bat" for you, rather than a faceless person on the phone.

Second, Sears makes it very clear that you cannot choose your owndelivery window. It says that you get a two-hour window on Sears.com,and the salespeople will tell you that as well. To call and complainabout something they have no control over (and they've told youmultiple times, it appears) expecting them to change the rules for oneperson... that's absurd. I'm sorry, but the post office isn't going toopen for you on Sunday, either.

The way you were treated... yes, people were a little rude. The onethat laughed would have pissed me off too. But remember that you wereasking them to do something that they could not do. If they let yourequest a delivery time, then everyone would have to. From what Igather, they schedule their deliveries based on a route in order toget the most deliveries done in one day. By deviating from that,someone else would likely have to be dropped just so you can get thetime that you wanted. I'm not 100% sure about this, but that's whymost companies use a particular route to prevent backtracking.

If you had bought this at the store, all of this could have beenavoided, as a salespeson would have told you up front that you can'trequest a delivery window. I know I made sure my appliances were alldelivered on my day off. If I ever need something THAT BAD, I'll takea day or half day off of work.

I'm sorry you had such a hard time, I wish I could say it was thefirst time I had heard about problems with Sears and its onlinepartner, but its not.

One thing I noticed in your letter that you may want to fix is yourtimeline - you say the trouble started with the call on the 11th, butlater you state that you called on the 5th, 6 days BEFORE the troublestarted. It might be that you have mixed up the chronological orderof your problems, or that you have entered an incorrect date, buteither way, it makes your complaint hard to follow.

I guess other people don't understand the rudeness you've had toendure. O've had so many years of dealing with businesses andcustomer service. It's rare you find any CS these days...plus theyounger generation hasn't been brought up the same as we were so theyres[ond to situations entirely differently, often in a manner we seeas rude. We're "hands on."

Since just before Sears became Kmart, they have sucked. We had apurchased a $400.00 lawnmower from them that broke during the firsttime we used it. We had also purchased the extended warranty...it wasabout that time Sears decided to enter a clause in all their contractsthat allwed them to weasle out of covering any item they chose toounder the extended warranty w/o having to tell us they did. Thathappened to us. They completely changed the terms and conditions andwe were screwed. Sold it for junk for $25.00...a few months laterthey are KMART! Go figure!

My sister recently had very similar problems with Home Depot andreturned the items she purchased for lack of customer service. Welcome to the next generation and no service.

I had a very difficult time getting through your letter. I'm not evensure I kept up with the chain of events correctly, but is does soundlike another example of complete incompetency on the part of Sears.

I'm sure you had your reasons, but I'm wondering why you orderedonline instead of through the store. I have never had a problem withdelivery, and everything has always gone smoothly on my instorepurchases.

And, please don't take this the wrong way, but instead of spending somuch of your employer's time on the telephone, why didn't you justarrange to take an entire day off for the delivery? Not to say therewould have been no problems, but at least you would have had a betterchance at some success.

This is a rotten situation, but I really don't think you're going toget a formal, written apology from the Chairman or President. WhileI'd like to think they'd be made aware of the situation, I'm surethere are people specifically in place in Sears' hierarchy who aredesignated to handle such complaints.

Anyway, good luck getting this rectified - I'd be frothing at themouth, myself.

I feel for you, honestly. These situations SUCK, and there's not muchwe can do about them.

But I have to point out that you admitted that you spent several hoursof your employer's time on the phone dealing with this problem. Wouldn't it have been just as easy to just BE HOME on Friday to acceptdelivery of your new stove? I find it difficult to believe that anemployer who wouldn't care/notice that you spent half a day takingcare of something personal on the phone wouldn't let you take half aday off from work. In fact, I'm thinking that most employers wouldprefer you take the half-day of vacation, considering that's yourtime, rather than spend half a day of the employer's time on thephone.